


we made our peace with weariness

by Druddigonite



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I'm so sorry, it's not even remotely romantic, nothing gets resolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25603579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Druddigonite/pseuds/Druddigonite
Summary: "You don't have to do this," she tells him over a bouquet of fluorescent mushrooms, most likely hand-picked during the day's worth of moping he spent in the Glimwood Tangle. Bede only cocks an eyebrow.Bede can't apologize.
Relationships: Beet | Bede/Yuuri | Gloria
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26





	we made our peace with weariness

**Author's Note:**

> *coughs up a drabble and skitters away*

To Gloria, saying sorry has always been something more than common courtesy—a repertoire that she shares with her mother, who mumbles apologies to things she cannot apologize for, from how sudden rains can drench their drying clothes to when her husband passed in the Galar mines. Burdens laid to rest, the snap of something coiled allowed to unravel. 

To Bede, it's almost taboo.

"You don't have to do this," she tells him over a bouquet of fluorescent mushrooms, most likely hand-picked during the day's worth of moping he spent in the Glimwood Tangle. Bede only cocks an eyebrow. 

She can count on Golisopod's wings how many times he's apologized, and golisopods don't even _have_ wings, which for sure says a lot about him. It is the iron poker to his faerie's skin, words too muddied by years of pride and repression (and the two are never not dissimilar) to choke out.

Instead, he eases his regrets in other ways.

The bouquet is only the beginning. She'd start receiving rookidees at her window carrying little cartons of artisan chocolate the next morning; gilded letters piled in the mailbox with poems that praised everything about her but spoke nothing about the sender; imported trinkets more defined by their price tag than their quality. Bede would arrive not long after, more pliant than he usually is, suggesting high-end restaurants she can waste his money on. Opal's theatrics condensed into tiny little admissions, even though he knows well enough how little she cares for sappy romantic gestures. 

"Do you like them?" Bede asks, "They're seasonal, and grow only after a heavy rainstorm. You don't normally see this shade of neon green around here."

"You can say 'sorry', you know. I'll understand. You can learn from your mistakes." It feels like they're having two separate conversations. She squeezes the bouquet in frustration, feeling stalks pop between her fingers.

His gaze lingers on the bruised stems. "Do you not like them? I know green is your favorite colour."

"I don't, no, not like _this_." She hands it back to him, and he takes it without the complaints or snark that have come to define their relationship. Odd, that she'd somehow miss their bickering. "Stop assuming this is what I want without my input, because taking me out doesn't change anything except delay the inevitable. Because months out I can _guarantee_ we will be having this same argument _because you don't fix the root of the problem_."

Something in him cracks; she can see it in the telltale clench of his jaw, the tightening of his fingers. "You're demanding the impossible."

 _There’s the boy behind the facade._ "I know. I want to see you try."

"I am." 

He says it like she just asked him to gather a tower's worth of wishing stones.

 _This isn't about me_ , she thinks, a little too desperately, _this is about you, and I want to help_. (Bede’s always had a habit of equating advice to control; maybe she was cursed to fight against him, for him.) "Can we… spend tomorrow together? Just at my mum's house. I'll show you how to make curry, nothing fancy."

Bede hesitates, then relents. “I’ll clear my schedule.” 

She watches him pluck at the bouquet, unable to meet her face. “I still believe you don’t fully understand my intentions for thinking the way I do, and I’m tired of giving out promises I know I can’t fulfill. But I’m. Sorry. That everything happened how it did.” 

Gloria offers him a sad smile. “It’s a start.”

**Author's Note:**

> [*scurries back to plop a link*](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/druddigoon)


End file.
